Honor did not choose Paris by chance to present its new range of smartphones in Europe. It is from the Paris-Longchamp Hippodrome that the Chinese manufacturer – long owned by Huawei before standing on its own two feet when American sanctions were imposed – lifted the veil on its Honor 200 series which prides itself on a collaboration with Studio Harcourt, a famous Parisian photography house.
While the name Harcourt may not mean anything to you, you’ve probably seen their work before. They have been photographing the biggest stars on the planet for almost 90 years with a style that is difficult to imitate. Proof of this is that the studio offers its services from 995 euros (but count on 1,995 euros to have the same portrait as the stars). And yet, today, the Harcourt experience will be accessible to everyone, or at least to people who buy an Honor 200 or Honor 200 Pro, since these smartphones have a partnership with the famous Parisian studio. “With the HONOR 200 Series, we are proud to bring to Europe the perfect fusion of art and technology, enabling everyone to take studio-quality portraits every time,” says Tony Ran, President of HONOR Europe .
Well, unsurprisingly, it is ultimately just a filter (three to be precise) which is based on artificial intelligence (AI) by reproducing the nuances of lighting in order to offer a more or less similar to professional portraits. The results that we were shown or that we were able to achieve during a quick handling of the smartphone were quite convincing, giving a real professional feeling. Note, however, that in addition to this AI filter, the smartphones (200 and 200 Pro) still include a 50Mpx main sensor as well as a 50Mpx telephoto lens with a custom Sony sensor. In short, the Honor 200 series wants to establish itself as THE cameraphone of the year 2024. From the beginnings that we have seen, it has the arguments but this will have to be tested over a longer period.
We will also highlight the Risk-free dimming technology of 3840 Hz present on the devices which promotes visual health. The manufacturer also presented a comparison with other competing smartphones where we could very clearly see the difference in the refreshing of the screen in “night” mode, de facto improving the quality of users’ sleep. The rest of the technical sheet is more classic with a 5,200 mAh battery, fast charging (100W wired, 66W wireless), a Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 chip, 12 GB of RAM… The only wow factor comes from the ‘OS since Honor integrates intelligent features that allow you to quickly share information from one application to another. For example, you can directly drag a message containing an address into Google Maps to obtain directions.
Great promises on paper that will now have to be compared with daily use to see if the Honor 200 or 200 Pro is really worth its price.
Price and availability
- The HONOR 200 Pro is available in three colors – Moonlight White, Midnight Black and Ocean Cyan – exclusively on honor.com. It is available for pre-order from €799.90 on honor.com.
- The HONOR 200 is offered in Emerald Green and Moonlight Black. It is available for pre-order from €649.90 on honor.com.
- The HONOR 200 Lite is available in Cyan Lake, Midnight Black and Starry Blue (colors exclusively available on the HONOR website). It is available from all HONOR partners and on the HONOR.com website from €329.90
